Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1809-94, American author and physician, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1829; M.D., 1836); father of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He began his medical career as a general practitioner but shifted into the academic field, becoming professor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth (1838-40), dean of the Harvard medical school (1847-53), and Parkman professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard (1847-82). A stimulating and popular speaker, he published two important medical lectures, one in opposition to the practice of homeopathy and the other on the nature of fevers. His first important poem, "Old Ironsides" (1830), was a protest against the scrapping of the fighting ship Constitution. A collection of his witty occasional poems was published in 1836. In 1857 he began to contribute to the Atlantic Monthly (which he named) the famous series of "Breakfast-table" sketches, which were collected in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858) and several subsequent volumes. These urbane pieces present imaginary conversations at a Boston boardinghouse, reflecting Holmes's opinions, charm, and wit. The first volume includes several poems, of which the most famous are the ironic "Deacon's Masterpiece" and "The Chambered Nautilus." Among his other notable works are three novels presenting a scientific approach to psychological traits, most notably Elsie Venner (1861); and biographies of his friends John Lothrop Motley (1879) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1855).

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 1841-1935, American jurist, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1902-32), b. Boston; son of the writer Oliver Wendell Holmes. He served (1861-64) with distinction in the Civil War, took a law degree at Harvard (1866), and began practice in Boston in 1867. Holmes taught (1870-73) constitutional law and jurisprudence at Harvard while editing the American Law Review and the 12th edition (1873) of Kent's Commentaries. In 1880, Holmes delivered a series of lectures on common law at the Lowell Institute. In them he attacked prevailing views of jurisprudence and proposed new conceptions of the origin and nature of law. He maintained that the law could be understood only as a response to the needs of the society it regulated, and that it was useless to consider it merely a body of rules developed logically by legal theorists. With the publication of the Lowell lectures in 1881, Holmes achieved international recognition. He became (1882) professor of law at Harvard and several months later was appointed to the Massachusetts supreme judicial court. There he served for 20 years, becoming chief justice in 1899. He was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1902. The canons of Holmes's judicial faith were strict and demanding. He preached "judicial restraint" and firmly believed that popular majorities through their elected representatives should not have their will thwarted capriciously; when his colleagues on the court nullified social legislation—e.g., minimum wage and hour laws—as unconstitutional, Holmes vigorously objected. From his eloquent opinions in these cases he came to be regarded as the Great Dissenter. In cases dealing with free speech, however, Holmes felt it necessary for the judge to loose the bonds of restraint and prevent legislatures from assuming censorious powers. In defense of the First Amendment, he developed the "clear and present danger" rule, which allows for restrictions only when the public interest is faced with immediate threat. Set forth in the Abrams and Gitlow cases in dissenting opinions, the rule was generally accepted by the Supreme Court. Holmes's published works include The Common Law (1881), Speeches (1891, 1913), and Collected Legal Papers (1920).

(born Aug. 29, 1809, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.—died Oct. 7, 1894, Cambridge) U.S. physician, poet, and humourist. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1847 and later became dean of its medical school. He won national acclaim with his poem “Old Ironsides” (1830). From 1857 he published his “Breakfast-Table” essays in The Atlantic Monthly, later republished in such collections as The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858) and The Professor of the Breakfast-Table (1860). Other works include the poem “The Chambered Nautilus” and the novel Elsie Venner (1861). Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., is his son.